


The name in the family Bible

by percywrites



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Historical Hetalia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:21:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24382756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/percywrites/pseuds/percywrites
Summary: Emil Stigsson, a teenager from 1845 Iceland, is sent to Denmark by his father. He finds a mysterious name that has been crossed out who would have been his sibling twelve years prior.
Relationships: Denmark/Norway (Hetalia), Hong Kong/Iceland (Hetalia)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 24





	The name in the family Bible

**Author's Note:**

> This is a short story from a larger project I'm working on over on Wattpad.

In 1845, the year that Emil Stigsson, son of a Danish noble and an Icelandic farmer's daughter, moved to Reykjavik, Iceland was torn apart by the volcano Hekla. It spewed ash and poisonous gases, eventually killing the sheep and cattle. It happened in the fall, when the summer came to a golden close, and only a few days after he left his mother's ancestral farm, sitting only about one-hundred-fifty kilometers from its base, to Reykjavik.

Only four days after his arrival to his father's manor, Emil observed a plume of smoke rising from the direction of his beloved Kirkjubæjarklaustur, and his mother's farm. He ran to his father's house in a flurry of panic, hoping to Christ that it had not destroyed his home, his grandparents' livelihood or had obstructed the caravan of carts following close behind his mother's carriage, full of his prized possessions and, not least, his mother.

His father was holed up in his office, stamp and pen in hand, going through documents in his take-home box. As Emil entered, his father looked up, and said, "Why are you here? I'm busy. Go outside and play."

Emil hardly had time to apologize, and cried, "Father, look outside, to the east!"

A wave of shock washed over his face. Emil's father started, standing from his desk chair, and made haste outside. "I must send word to Holbøll before the harbor becomes too crowded. Make sure to secure the dishes in the cabinet–the shaking will start."

And off he went. Emil searched for a purpose beyond settling the rattling china in the cabinet or the king's portrait on the wall. Then he thought of the animals. Despite living in Reykjavik proper, Emil's father filled the space of his wife with chickens in the cramped garden, a cat lazing in the rare sun and an assortment of exotic birds to remind him of the available wonders the elder had left behind on the Continent.

Typically during the aftermath of such an explosion, there was the wild spread of disease throughout the controlled area, or a murrain. Death. His father had recounted the story of the grand Mount Tambora explosion when he, as a thirteen-year-old interested by the diverse landscape of his home island, had asked about volcanos; his father responded with fervor and a note of fear. It seemed to him that his son be aware of the grave consequences of such an eruption, one that destroyed not only Oceania, but Europe as well.

It seemed poetic at the time. The year without summer. An infinite fog. But now the reality was there, and it was stark, and the possibility presented itself more as a fact than anything else. Despite his noble heritage, Emil had known hunger.

When the dense winter descended upon Kirkjubæjarklaustur and snowed him in with his grandparents, the doors were shut tight for fear of the warmth of their cooling dwelling escaping out into the shimmering, deadly void. Iceland did not have many domestic of sources of food, and Emil knew this well by five, when his grandfather took him in the cart to the rivers and the sea, and they would catch fish and the occasional shark, and would ferment and salt and store them for the winter. Sometimes those stores would run out.

His father and mother lived apart as their love ran thin and only really was mutual when it came to their son; even then, it was truly lacking. Though they were married, it was really only because his father wished to seem authentically Icelandic (this was why Emil had taken his father's first name instead of his family name), and to secure a large dowry. Emil's mother's parents were old and frail, and they kept their only daughter–only child–as close as they could.

Though his father had always promised the continual supply of salted fish, pork and even vegetables from Emil's secondary homeland of Denmark, they ran out with the ongoing wars in Europe, especially during the harsh northern winter. Even if his father offered every luxury available to Emil's great southern European heroes–apples, pomegranates, olives, bountiful bread and meat–he would have turned it down. There was something about his grandparents' farm that seemed deeply permanent and true to him.

The damage of the eruption would be enough to bring him back to the scarcity of food in his early childhood.

Running through the manor, searching for staff to help him round up the valuables, Emil found in the cellar a huddling crowd of servants. They whispered words of conspiracy to one another, each one wondering the same thing Emil did: would his mother return? Would the master of the house be crushed in the rubble to be strewn throughout the island, or suffocated by the thick gases that ensued? After all, he was not an Icelander, he could not survive, he came from Denmark, a flat, boggy collection of islands, nothing like Iceland.

He quietly asked one of them to help him gather the vases in the halls and set them in the boxes from the attic, the ones Emil had left by the stairs, anxiously interrupting their conversation. He did not care much if the waitstaff had some disdain for him; the only difference between him and them was that his father had had the great privilege to have been born into the aristocratic class in Denmark. Even Emil had had a great run of it; that year, Emil had read in the papers that Irishmen were fleeing by the thousands to Great Britain and America–the potato crop had failed. He remembered feeling great remorse at this, for it reminded him that Ireland and Scandinavia's collective situation were certainly similar. It could have been him.

The rest of the staff scrambled to tend to other affairs–Emil didn't really know what, but many of them were older than he, so he trusted them.

Pulling on a long, warm jacket, Emil ran out into the street, following the winding road from Reykjavik to its outskirts and into the fields, climbing up a tall hill to overlook the road. The great cloud was spreading across the horizon. Hekla was far away; he did not find this good news. He scanned the road for sign of his mother, but all there was was the new influx of refugees whose homes in the Icelandic wasteland had been besieged by a mostly dormant volcano.

"Lord Emil!" shouted a voice behind him. He turned on a heel, reluctant to look away from the direction of his dear mother. It was the voice of a younger household staff member.

He was out of breath, and was shifty in his eyes. The sparse light caught them in a way that made Emil's stomach flutter. He handed over a small scrap of fine letter paper with inky black cursive; across it was scrawled short note from his father.

At Althing. Pack bags. To Copenhagen to see grandmother.

He had never left Iceland. He did not wish to leave Iceland. He had never even considered it. He would spend a few years at an Icelandic or Greenlandic outpost in the Danish army then return to his dear Kirkjubæjarklaustur, and finally live out his days roaming the expansive pastures with a large herd of sheep, hiking the nearby mountains and learning the language of nature around him.

"Thank you," Emil said, jerking himself from his deep confusion and terror. Then, in an effort to remain strong, Emil commanded the servant, "Please ensure that the animals are attended to."

The servant nodded, and took off in the direction of downtown Reykjavik, towards Emil's new-old life, and away from his newest one across the sea in Denmark. He bent over, took a black-stained chunk of pumice, inspected it for a moment in his fingers, and dropped it in his pocket. He resolved to keep it as a reminder of home. It would keep him strong. It would tell him that, despite the predicted murrain, winter and subsequent social depression, he would survive, just as he always had. He would write everyday to his mother, and count his days until his return.

Turning almost unwillingly from his lookout post, Emil began a slow walk home. The stark architecture of Reykjavik presented a multitude of clean, straight angles and sides, bright reds and yellows popping out amidst the spruce-colored grass and the goldenrod of the straw strewn throughout the cobbled, muddy streets. He heard distant singing as he walked past a full pub. Distress did strange things, even at noon.

When he returned home, he found the front door open to the street. He entered slowly, and called out. "Hello? Father?"

His father, as if summoned out of thin air, came rushing down the stairs faster than Emil had ever seen him, and cupped Emil's face in his hands. "You went missing! I was looking for you, and I called for you! You were supposed to be here, looking after the house!"

Emil looked down apologetically, and said, "I'm sorry, Father."

He broke from his father's grasp and made his way up the polished wooden staircase, the carpet leading up only serving to remind him of the frigidity of the Icelandic winter, and lessened summer after that, and his sudden departure. It seemed all at once unfair and lucky.

His room was a plain white cramped office space, boasting a window overlooking the boulevard below. His bed sat against the wall, a red quilt folded at its foot. A small desk, next to a large mahogany dresser, was crammed into the corner, a small wooden chair accompanying it. The floor was a cold, thin rug covering rough, unpolished wooden planks. Lighting a candle, Emil strained his eyes against the falling darkness, and set about to work.

In his trunk he piled his favorite lopapeysa, several blouses, his coats, his paints and his undergarments. In his rucksack all there was was an assortment of historical works; books his father had gotten to round out his education back on the farm, and had only recently become interesting with his mastering of Latin and Greek. Among these works was that of Herodotus, the Greek-Persian historian, and a mathematical theorem from Sir Isaac Newton.

As he sorted through these books, he stumbled upon his family Bible. He had never paid much attention to it; although he had been confirmed into the Icelandic Lutheran church, as well as baptized, he never found the time to even read the Bible. His mother did not mind; they were Norse after all, and the Church–Catholics included–were purely a form of monetary relief.

He slowly lifted the cover. He had only done it a handful of times. On the inside were the names of all of the family members in his mother's family. His grandparents were scrawled in an elegant calligraphy, his grandfather's parents' names written above those, and so on. At the very bottom, at the edge of the page, was his name, under the names of his mother and father. Emil Stigsson was very neat and uniform; his father had written it in his perfect educated hand, as if he had written it a thousand times before. Slightly before that was a simple 1828-.

He had never noticed it much; it had always escaped his vision, but this time it struck him in his misery, and perhaps his maddening drive, newly installed within him, to find his origins, and to keep them. He feared his mother's legacy would be buried under the ash, soot and burnt fleece of Hekla. The pumice in his pocket suddenly felt very heavy. Next to Emil's name was another, scratched out somewhat recently (perhaps only a decade ago), its ink only just starting to fade. There was the illegible start of a name, followed by frantic pooling ink. It descended from his parents' names just like his. 1818-1833. Curiosity was lit in his stomach as if he had dropped a match into a hearth covered in the dust of coal. He took a piece of paper, and, with an ink set given to him by his father upon his arrival in Reykjavik just a few days earlier, began to copy the scratched-out name into a leather-bound notebook filled with drawings of leaves brought from Denmark by his father, blades of grass he had found and a deceased chicken fetus still in the egg.

He could not think of a reason why his mother and father would go such lengths to hide a name. To strike out a name from the family Bible was as if his parents would rather this stranger never existed. A shudder went through him. At that moment, he knew he was in over his head.

He slowly put the Bible back in his bag, and tucked the small journal into his pant pocket. He planned to ask about it at an appropriate time–perhaps at dinner when his mother was there. He could not see the harm it would do for him to know. If it had been a baby or a toddler who had died, it would not have mattered so much, however a fifteen-year-old child seemed more interesting. He could not remember them despite having lived five years of their life.

Slowly lugging his trunk downstairs, he squeezed by a few servants rushing off somewhere, chatting nervously about their given tasks. Apologizing, Emil continued downward, somewhat apprehensive of the upcoming encounter. He felt like he was in the middle of the Pacific, an ocean he had only seen on his battered maps at the farm, surrounded by a frenzy of huge sharks, sharks much larger than those he had caught with his grandfather, the type to sink a fishing ship. He could not show fear around those sharks because they could smell it from the scent of his skin. Even the look in Emil's eyes caused him to fear the premature discovery of his findings, before he was on the higher ground with the advantage, him holding the sword and shield.

Emil then heard the creaking open of the front door, and the tired voice of his mother, and hurried his things downstairs, leaving scuffs on the bare wood where visible. "Mother!" he exclaimed, running through the entry hall to rejoin her, excited and relieved all at once to see her kind face in the doorway.

"My son! You are safe. My companion"–she motioned now to her personal maid–"will tell you that for the whole journey I did not cease to inquire of your whereabouts. Especially with the smoke eastbound, I worried."

"Did you hear an explosion?" he demanded with only the animosity an aspiring naturalist like him would have. "Or did you feel an earthquake?"

She smiled, and shook her head. "No, I'm afraid not. I fell coming out of the carriage, though–my train caught my boots." She paused for a moment, sobering a little, looking her boy up and down. "Pardon, I must to my apartments."

Kissing his forehead, she pushed past him, and, the muddied tail of her mulberry cloak indeed catching the backs of her teal-satin shoes, tramped upstairs to change from her periwinkle traveling robe and into something more suitable for dinner. His eyes followed his mother as she rounded the staircase corner, two or three servants trailing with her primary cases, and then out of sight. Behind him his father appeared, looking significantly older and more exhausted than his mother. He was only fifty, but had aged physically faster than that. Iceland had perhaps taken a toll on him. It was not an easy region to administrate.

He, too, disappeared up the winding wooden staircase, his coattails tight against the back of his legs, their ebony pills becoming more and more visible with use. This fall had been significantly colder than usual, even though it was only the second day of September. A servant whispered a pardon as she reached across the back of him, standing on her toes, to light a candle in the entry way. He apologized and hurried upstairs, following his mother into her sitting room.

It was not a room he had frequented in all of his months spent with his father throughout his life. With the exception of Christmas and Easter, it remained empty, the warm presence of his mother knitting or reading by the fire absent, and thus the room remained incomplete for him. It was carpeted in a dull pink Persian pattern, with a fuzzy mauve satin wallpaper. The sparse sconces and small window offered little light, but made the room cozy. He sat on the violet loveseat, and waited for his parents to return from their respective rooms. He thought of the name scratched out of the family Bible. What could it mean?

A moment later his mother strode into the room, book in hand, and began reading in a comfortable arm chair by the fire. Emil nodded to her in greeting. A moment later his father followed, decidedly less muddy. Emil nodded again, tucking his hands between his thighs in boredom.

"Tell me," his father said, disturbing his mother's escape. "How did you find the air? It is becoming thicker with each passing minute. It reminds me of my time in London."

"Ah," his mother replied, looking pensively into the fireplace, then back at her leather novel, "I miss the wind of the wasteland. I miss home." She returned her gaze to her book.

"Emil," the deep voice was now directed at him. "I planned to keep you here, but I am afraid for our welfare, as well as yours. I suppose it is time to send you off to Copenhagen, and it is not out of the ordinary for one of your age to go now. I have written the dean at the local university, and I have paid for a ship ticket."

Emil sat in silence for a moment. "You do not want to go?"

"What will I study, Father?" he asked quietly. He prayed for the second time that day, this time to God Himself, that his father would let the reins loose.

"I believe that with practice you would do well in Parliament. You are to study political science for a time before your return home." His father's reply struck him like a slap across his face. Emil wished to become a naturalist, or a seismologist, not some aristocrat stuck in a chamber with grumpy old men for the rest of his days.

"Do you protest?" queried his mother, seemingly more out of curiosity than cruel admiration of his evident pain. "I do think he would excel in animal husbandry; though I think someone of your position might benefit from your father's suggestion." She directed a stoney face at him, and for a moment Emil felt understood. Perhaps she would stop him being sent to a foreign land to speak a semi-foreign language and learn something so uninteresting. Even harp lessons would be more intriguing, and Emil refused to play the harp, for it was a horrid thing to play. "What is your wish?"

Thinking against his wishes, and for the millionth time in his life, Emil verbally agreed with his father on something he really would rather die than do. Something felt like it was dying inside him. Emil consoled himself a little, thinking, What if it isn't so bad? Perhaps Father is right, and I will find politics enjoyable. Perhaps I will enjoy Denmark as well.

Then another question pressed against him: "When do I leave?"

The answer was a dreaded one. Tomorrow. He didn't know if he would ever come back. A million scenarios rushed Emil's mind. What if he were to fall ill? Or was shot by a dissident? Or perhaps kidnapped by Teutonic Knights, and taken back to Prussia, where he would convert and speak German, his worst language of all, and have to live a slave on medieval farms. It seemed as though his neck was between the business end of a blade and a chopping block, rearing to end his peaceful existence among the rocks, the mountains, the boulders, the abundance of sheep out his bedroom window, even from the outskirts of the city. Was Copenhagen like that? Or was it like his father described London, a great sooty mass of limestone and factories and dirty farmhands, interspersed with royalty and aristocrats decked head-to-toe in decadent African jewels and magnificent Asian silks?

He stood from the loveseat, his mind spinning. "I must continue packing, in that case." He partially lied; he had packed, though only for no more than a few months. He wanted to scream. Even his mother agreed that the worst thing in the world was the best. Denmark, right then, seemed like a death sentence. It was everything Emil didn't want: he would leave Iceland behind for a muddy, miserable, wet, flat little country that boasted nothing more than withered old raisin men lifted from bogs, and the occasional war with Sweden. More realistically, the wars in Europe continued, and every year since 1800, forty-five years before now, there was a new conflict. Russia and Persia and Albania took turns declaring war, Spain was in the midst of a civil war, and beyond that, nations outside of Europe were not doing well either. The United States was attempting to procure northern Mexican territories to add to its growing list of dependent states. Cuba was also part of its endeavors–by then, Spain couldn't pay for the Cuban exports, so the United States businesses bought quite a bit of land and corporations.

His father wanted him to put himself in shark-infested waters. Foreign relations were hairy, and charisma was not one of Emil's strong points. War was so imminent in so many places that he didn't want to disturb the uneasy peace.

Emil saw that he really didn't have a choice. He would have to run if he were to escape the expectations of his father. His life, right then, was not his own. Emil also knew that once he returned to Iceland, his father would have prepared a Danish bride for him. He did not want to marry. No one had ever spoken to him about his future as a married man, but Emil had thought about it a great deal. His greatest vice was that he would rather pitch off into the sea than ever have to marry a woman. Sexual relations, to him, were what burning in Hell would feel like. He loved women, just not in the way his mother and father wanted. The movement for women's rights was just beginning to wake up, and Emil supported it as much as he could, but his respect for women did not change that he had himself a dark secret.

He was a sodomite.

Not only that, but he felt on the wrong side of things. Officially, his name was Emil Halfdan Stigsson, but to be called completely a son was rough on his skin and tight on his heart. It felt like shackles cutting into his skin.

But his life was to change. He was a man who loved women, not the romantic company of men, and wished for a lifelong career either in Denmark or Iceland as a politician, petitioning for moderate laws, laws that had been there since the beginning of time. He would grow old, and the King of Denmark would award him with a medal for remaining the least radical politician of all, and at the end of his life he would die content and honored, and not mentioned in a single natural history book, and would lay to rest beside his late wife, not a man.

Deep in thought, and partially remorse, a soft knock on the door alerted him to someone else's presence. It was his mother.

"Emil?" she said quietly, putting a hand on his slumped shoulders.

He looked up at her, his eyes slightly moist from his despair. "Hello, Mother."

"I wanted to tell you that we're sitting for dinner in a few minutes. Your father and I will dine with you tonight," she said, kissing him on his forehead. "Do not despair; your life will be worth living, and I think you will find that the work your father is giving you will do as much good as your natural aspirations."

"Yes, Mother."

She left him with a sympathetic glance. She, much like her despairing son, was not given a choice in marrying Emil's father. She was luckier than most, but Emil knew she still felt for her own loss, and she knew that she was more of a stepping stone for the men in her life than anything else.

Folding a pair of breeches, Emil stood slowly from the ground, his head a throbbing headache. Walking tiredly through the halls, he coughed. The cold, dry air was getting to him.

In the dining room, his parents sat at his father's long mahogany table, decked with brass candleholders and silver utensils. His mother had changed her dress again, this time in a soft smoky rose, and his father in his still-damp waist coat. Nodding his head at both of them, he took his seat next to his father. The Bible was a weight in his stomach. The man next to him knew whoever that was, the fifteen-year-old who had disappeared–or died–when Emil was five. The child he could not remember.

Soft, delicate bird was served on a porcelain plate, and Emil picked at it, tired out of his mind. The potato accompanying it went cold, the juices from the bird giving it a rather meaty taste. The question pounded in his head.

"Father," Emil said, addressing the man for perhaps the second time that day–rather strange for their relationship, as they were not close–"I have a question concerning a Bible."

His father rested his wrists on the table, the knife and fork drooping a little, and gave him a quizzical look. "The family Bible," clarified Emil, hoping his father hadn't indeed forgotten.

A dark cloud passed over his father's face, and he looked down at the scraps of bone and flesh from his meal, and said, "What about it?"

"I noticed, in the family Bible from Mother's house, that a sibling was born in 1818, and died in 1833. I was five then. I was just curious, what happened to them?" Emil said, the hairs on the back of his neck rising, his heart a mess of fear and anxiety at that moment. It felt as weighty as the lead paperweight his father had given him years before.

His mother piped up then, interjecting her own commentary into the lack of his father's. "Your brother," she began, "left home when he was fifteen."

Emil felt a ripple of surprise for him. A brother, possibly still alive. Not dead at fifteen of tuberculosis. Quickly doing the mental math, Emil found that his brother would be twenty-seven. A real, tangible brother. "A brother," he murmured. "What happened to him?"

His father cut off his mother when she replied, gruffly reporting, "He brought this family shame. He left Iceland for Denmark after a dispute about his friend. You are prohibited from contact with him. I will disinherit you as well. Christ himself could not dissuade me."

Emil's mother gave his father a murderously cold look just then, and with a chastising tone, said, "How dare you speak of my son like that! Emil, your brother was a wonderful boy. He had his vices, and as a result had to leave Reykjavik. That was when we moved home."

A wave of realization washed over Emil as he realized what she meant to say. His brother had gotten his father in trouble, presumably, which caused a rupture in the relationship of his parents large enough to force Emil and his mother back to the farm. "I...," replied Emil, fearful of what would happen if he agreed with his mother. "I will not find him, Father, I promise you."

"Good," he said, and dug into a second serving of bird.

After dinner, his mother went to rest by the fire in her sitting room, and his father went to his office. The most open parent was obviously his mother, and for a moment he wondered if she had had any recent correspondence with his new–rather, old–brother. Denmark just then seemed like less of a death sentence, and more of a paradise where he could find someone who could truly answer all of his pressing questions–his sibling. His mother would tell him where to find him; there had always been a part of her, unflattened by years of brutal and unforgiving misogynist culture, that lived to defy Emil's father.

Emil followed her out, and stalked her carefully. Once he was sure she was alone in her dim room, he knocked, and entered that cramped, sweltering space filled with the smoke of myrrh and frankincense, a worried half-smile on his face. So long as he smiled, he could retain a good attitude.

"Emil," said his mother, "how is your father? Does he seem fine with you and me living with him?" Her voice was nervous, and it shook with the fear his father had evidently given her.

"I think he is scared, or nervous at the very least," replied Emil, observing the flickering shadows across his mother's newly-lined face.

He sat down on the little loveseat once again, and silence settled on the air like a fine coat of dust. "Mother," he said, trying to fill himself with all the courage he could. "I was curious, has my brother corresponded with you recently?"

The silence fell again, this time more imposing and heavy, as his mother weighed her words. A dark look fell over her face, and she closed her book, placing her thumb between the pages to save her place. "I...," she began, then stopped, as if the words had been pasted to the back of her throat. "He has."

"I should like to meet him one day," said Emil eagerly.

"Your brother is...," she stopped again, thinking about the information she now felt required to divulge. "Your brother left to escape persecution here, and went to Denmark, where no one knew him. He took his friend, and a sum of money coming from my own allowance from your father. Your father would have killed him, I think. I last sent him a letter around 1841. He must have moved, for he never responded."

Emil was quiet for a moment, then said, "And if I were to seek him out... would Father kill me too?"

She was silent, and Emil knew he had his answer. "What was his name?"

"Lukas," his mother said, a look of supreme happiness on her face as she remembered the boy she once cared for. "Lukas Stigsson, that was his name. He changed it to Lukas Bondevik–he was more proud of his Icelandic heritage than the name of his father, apparently. The farmer of the inlet is quite beautiful, though."

"Lukas Bondevik," Emil committed the name to memory. It was unbelievable to say the name of a brother, a brother with a face and a life and a story.

"I will give you his address before your departure. Do not let your father see this," she said quietly, and handed him a piece of thick paper from the back of her novel. "You will want contacts in any case."

Emil thanked her, and pecked her cheek with his lips.

Outside, clouds gathered against the blue charcoal sky, the dim glow of the spewing mountain in the distance. Smoke had already begun to fill Reykjavik. He took a deep breath of the crisp, rotten eggs air, and returned inside after fifteen minutes of staring out at the horizon.

At dawn, Emil was woken by that servant boy from the day before. The boy's dark eyes glinted with the rising sun as he drew the curtains, unleashing a torrent of honey-colored light. Emil sat up, groggy from the uneasy night's rest. "Good morning," he said.

The servant nodded, light casting across his sharp face. Emil stood from his comfortable bed, exposing his bare skin against the frigid air. Shivering, he splashed equally cold water over his face, and pulled on his trousers and shirt, taking a moment to button each button properly, contemplating the prospect of this being his last Icelandic morning. Downstairs he would eat skyr mixed with delicate, sweet cloudberry jam, and drink light beer. His mother would kiss his face, and his father would put a firm hand on his shoulder, before a coach would take him to the ferry, where he would spend several days in transit to Denmark.

The ferry was packed with refugees from the eruption, many of them upper class Danes fleeing their land for the secure, predictable grasslands of Denmark. He slept in an inside cabin, sharing it with two boys his same age–he never quite caught their names, but from the language they spoke, and his rudimentary understanding of Scandinavian language, they came from Sweden, and had returned from a tour in America. The two men shared a cot, their arms tangled and their faces close. Emil wondered if Europe–and America–allowed such relations. He thought of the dark-eyed servant boy in his room that morning, drawing the curtains and leaving a cup of warm tea by his bed.

He dined with the two Swedish men in the cafeteria. They spoke French, as did Emil, which made their communication easier. The taller one, a man hailing from Umeå, spoke affectionately of America. Emil listened closely to his report: it was free, it was clean, they valued liberty above all else. The man's friend–a shorter, slightly more feminine man–had encountered trouble in America. America was very much segregated, and held prejudice towards those not of European descent–the shorter man was a Finn, Emil later found. Finns were not considered European.

At the harbor in Copenhagen, dubbed Nyhavn, the trio parted, the two Scandinavians to their connecting boat heading across the Øresund Strait to Malmö, and Emil following a map pointing him to the home of his grandparents. He had never met his father's parents, and to him they had been awful myths. Myths of beating, of starvation, of being locked in a room for days on end. Emil felt fear to walk through his grandparents' threshold after what his father had told him. Maybe those kind Swedes could sneak him away to a freedom alongside other sodomites.

Yet his feet led him down the thin cobblestone lanes of Copenhagen. Europeans thronged the streets, attending markets and calling on friends and debating intellectuals over lox in cafés lining the waterfront. His grandparents' home was an imposing red townhouse, wedged between two yellow ones. He rapped his knuckles against the door. A maid dressed in black answered, and showed him in. "Master!" she called, scuttling through the home. "Master, your son's son has arrived!"

A set of hurried footsteps came from the other room, heels clacking against cold marble. "My grandson!" A booming voice resembling his father's filled Emil's ears, giving a shiver down his spine. A withered old face appeared in the door, and rough old hands wrapped themselves around Emil's comparatively small frame. "I cannot believe I finally have met you! A September journey surely must have been difficult."

The elderly man smelt heavily of fish, and Emil was reminded of how his father's family had procured such fortune and prestige. His grandfather owned a huge shipping warehouse in a harbor just outside of Copenhagen.

Emil agreed with his grandfather, and he was shown to a small room in the corner of the house, looking over a courtyard, leading out to a small wooden platform with stairs into said courtyard. Benches and weeds filled the center of the light little center, with an archway leading out into the city. Emil tried the door handle, but it was locked.

He pushed his trunk under his bed, shortly after putting his clothes into the drawers of the tall wooden dresser against the far wall. The bed had a red quilt, in conflict with the stark white walls, with their green trim.

He held the slip of paper his mother had given to him in his hands, its gentle weight heavier in his heart than his hands. His brother was there. He put it in his pocket, resolving to find Lukas Bondevik as soon as he could.

He returned to the drawing room, where his grandfather sat. Emil kissed him on both cheeks, something his father told him was popular in France (the French were always fashionable, right?), and took a seat across from him. "I was wondering, Grandfather," began Emil, but was cut off when his grandfather interjected with, "Let us begin our queries later, I was just awaiting you so that I might introduce you to your professors. The dean is my dear friend, and thus has allowed you into the political science program with little trouble."

Emil nodded, and once again felt like the French King Louis XVI shortly before his death. Decadent, reveling while his kingdom had already fallen, awaiting execution by guillotine. How could he possibly carry on like this–an old man, perfectly happy with the status quo, forcing young people like Emil into careers and marriages that were not suitable to them. He figured that Lukas Bondevik must have felt the same way.

Lukas Bondevik. He did not know who it was he would find in the nebulous world, the expanding world, of Lukas Bondevik. To find his brother would be a ticket to freedom. His grandfather seemed only like a thin membrane separating Emil and liberation at that point.

His grandfather stood, and taking Emil's hand, led him into a carriage, and showed him a preview into what his life would become.

About a month later, Emil found himself in a tavern, surrounded by peers, debating European politics and studying for upcoming assessments. He was a good deal more progressive than his peers, who all leaned towards finding solutions to buy back colonies that Denmark had recently sold to England. To them–all aristocratic men born and raised in Copenhagen proper on grand estates–national pride meant everything, even at the expense of other Danes, and the nation itself, not to mention the actual inhabitants of the Asian colonies. Of course, his opinion did not matter much, as he was a younger boy coming from a colony himself, with little to no formal education.

His first lecture was dry, and he felt as though he would surely die before anything interesting happened. The second lecture he attended, led by a young professor, was much more engaging; it was on the subject of economics. The professor, called Dr. Khøler, conducted the lesson with bravado, establishing the facts of the Dutch tulip bubble a little more than two hundred years prior; for the first time, Emil found something interesting in his course load.

Emil's other lectures were much like the first one, but Dr. Khøler was a controversial and constantly shifting personality, his words more dynamic and riveting than anything else Emil had ever heard. Dr. Khøler also, by coincidence, spoke fluent Icelandic. Emil found this when he went to Khøler's office hours because some of the reading material he had been given was more difficult than he had expected. Khøler sat at a desk, a pile of crumpled papers scattered across it, and a frayed Persian rug covering the rough wooden floor.

Knocking on the door, Emil introduced himself as Stigsson. Upon hearing his concern, Khøler replied, "I thought this would be manageable. Anyone with a proper grasp of Danish should be able to understand this."

Emil then broke to him that he was, in fact, a citizen of that small colony across the North Sea. Khøler's face lit up, and something played out in his eyes for a moment. "Ah! I grew up in Reykjavik, you know. If you need, I can help you with Danish."

His offer seemed benign, but Emil couldn't think why a professor at one of the most prestigious universities in Scandinavia would feel the need to help a young foreigner with very little influence. Perhaps because then Khøler said that he had felt the same way when he came back to his country of birth, and had really only gotten back to Danish five years later.

From then on, Emil spent much of his free time after Khøler's lectures in Khøler's office, quietly learning how to read Danish. It was quite different than speaking, at which Emil excelled; for whatever reason, he had a massive amount of charisma that for whatever reason he had never tapped into. Along with Emil, there was another boy who was tutored by Khøler. His name was Leon Wang, at least in Europe, a British-Chinese boy from Hong Kong studying in Denmark for a year. Khøler spoke Cantonese and Japanese out of personal interest. Leon understood French, and through French Emil and Leon formed a friendship, and when Emil was sitting in that tavern, Leon was right by his side.

Emil felt a little fear rise within him when his hand touched Leon's under the table. He feared that his feelings would get him in trouble, especially with the laws against sodomy in Denmark, China and Britain. Of course, the Chinese laws against it were much less severe–from what Emil had heard through grapevine, the Qing laws against it were very relaxed in comparison to everything else, and sodomy was tolerated; though after four years of British control, Emil wondered if Leon really believed that sodomy was less of a sin than the West seemed to believe.

The rules his grandfather had given him on his second night in Copenhagen were strict, especially with his grief–his grandmother had died the night before his arrival. She laid in the room next to Emil's for a time, thank God for the cold air keeping the corpse less fragrant than it might have been during the warm Danish summer.

His grandfather restricted unnecessary purchases, friendships that would not be beneficial to a political career, sexual relationships and late library books. He was very strict, and had a curfew with no exceptions set to eight at night. Because of that, Emil found himself picking the lock on the door leading out onto the wobbly wooden landing at midnight to meet friends. In his mind he met the fantasy Lukas Bondevik, an eccentric chemist from outside Christiania, and Bondevik told him all of the family secrets, and tutored him in science.

It was not very long before Emil knew he had fallen for Leon, and Leon reciprocated. It was a blustery day in late October when Emil embraced Leon for the first time. They hid their affection in an empty corridor, and although it had only lasted a moment, it was the worst and best moment of Emil's life. It was the best because when he buried his head in Leon's shoulder, Leon set his chin on Emil's head, and Emil felt truly safe for the first time since he'd left his mother's farm only a few months before.

It was the worst because just then, Dr. Khøler came down the hallway, and saw the two boys' embrace. Starting, Leon grabbed the hand of Emil, and ran, yanking them out of the hallway, through a door, and onto an alley leading around the back of the school. Emil could not understand how he had been so careless. Lukas Bondevik would have been more careful, surely.

They spoke in hushed voices, worried out of their minds. Would Khøler go to the school board? Or maybe directly to the police? Or either of their sponsors, Leon's at the British embassy, Emil's widely known, most definitely by Khøler. Then there was the question of their lessons. How would they avoid the question of their respective sexualities? Leon perhaps would have a way out, other than the hundred whacks with a length of bamboo as prescribed in Hong Kong, Emil, not so much. He would spend a year or so in a work camp.

Footsteps following them outside quickly ensued, and Emil and Leon broke out sprinting, bursting out onto a boulevard, hiding themselves in the late day's traffic. A quick look in the eyes, and they knew they had to go their own ways. Emil hurried faster than he ever had to the university's library, setting his things down in a hurry, attempting to seem as though he was there for an innocent study session.

Burying his face in a large textbook, it was an hour before he was disturbed. Chewing the end of a pencil, he sat in tense tranquility pondering a problem concerning the basic calculus courses he had begged his grandfather to take. The monotonous sound of his eraser against the textbook's fine, though used, paper masked the sound of footsteps behind him.

When he felt a hand on his shoulder, Emil started, and hesitated to turn to face whomever it was who had come to confront him. Was it a policeman? Or perhaps his very own grandfather, who had heard from Khøler, and was especially mad considering the nature of the crime he had committed.

Emil turned his face slowly, scared out of his mind. Draped in his red velvety overcoat, and his brushed silk tophat, Khøler stood behind him, a solemn look on his face, his face slightly red from the cold wind outside. "May I speak to you outside?" Khøler said, quite out of breath. He had been running.

With little choice, Emil found himself carrying his things outside with the very person he strived to avoid. Khøler walked with him in silence for about five minutes before leading Emil into a park. No one within ten feet would hear them because of the high wind. Both Emil and Khøler knew this, and knew each other was well aware of that.

Taking a seat on a cold, hard little bench, Khøler beckoned the shivering Emil to take a seat beside him. Emil sat apprehensively, reluctant to be the one to speak first. Thank Christ that it was Khøler who finally took the helm. "I'm sure you're aware of why I wanted to speak to you." Emil nodded. "Your evident affection for Mr. Wang is dangerous."

Emil nodded. "I understand this. I promise you it will not happen again, it was simply–"

"Don't worry!" Khøler said with some urgency. "I won't tell. I do have a few questions, however." His face became red with embarrassment as he asked, "Your name–Emil Stigsson–are you related to anyone here?"

Emil suddenly felt the weight of the slip of paper in his trouser pockets. He had explored Copenhagen looking for the street his mother had told him. He had narrowed it down to the old town of Copenhagen, deep in one of its little alleyways, in close quarters to other ancient buildings, crumbling with brutal time, and war after war. "I'm a citizen of Denmark, and I also have my grandfather. My father is Stig Bondevik."

"Well, I know that, but I was asking more if you had any other relatives," Khøler said with an amount of annoyance. "Cousins, or uncles, or something...."

Emil looked at the ground. Khøler evidently was not one to question sodomy, but Emil could not think what would happen if he revealed his brother's name to the professor he thought he'd known to be more conservative. Perhaps Khøler only wanted to know his brother's name so that he could lead the police to Lukas Bondevik's door. "I do not have any knowledge of other relations. Thank you for your discretion, and for your liberal view of platonic affection between men, but I must go back to my grandfather's house. It is nearing the time that I must sit supper."

He stood to leave, but Khøler stood as well, and grabbed his arm. "Lukas Bondevik?"

Trying his best to appear emotionless, and less flabbergasted, Emil replied, "I don't know who that is. Good evening, Dr. Khøler."

Emil began the lengthy trek through the city home, walking quicker than ever. The first snow began to dust his shoulders, and he clutched his long, ratty woolen coat closed, popping the lapels to give his ears some relief. As he passed onto the bridge leading into Gammelholm, on the edge of which his grandfather's house sat, he once again felt the grip of a hand on his wrist. Fearing the worst, he spun around, ready to confront a possible enemy. Khøler was still a creature of great suspicion to him, despite his seemingly sincere assurances.

But this time it was Leon. "What are you doing here?"

"Just a walk."

"The British embassy is half a league away, you could have walked somewhere closer," Emil replied.

"Fine, I wanted to catch you before you went home," Leon answered, a sheepish grin on his face. "I got your address from the admissions office," he said before Emil could ask. "I just wanted to tell you that whatever happens, I do not feel shame. I find that the feminine form is just as pleasing as the masculine one, and I will not quiet something that I should feel no shame over. Attraction is no crime. Tu'er Shen is a great example of that."

A great amount of red flooded Emil's face, and he could not control it for the life of him. "I... I've never told anyone, but I find myself enjoying the company of men as much as a woman might."

A smile spread over Leon's face. "I saw Dr. Khøler," Emil continued, "he promised to keep our crime a secret. We should be more careful, if this is to carry on."

"Do you wish for it to continue?" Leon asked softly. By now the sun had set, and his face was gently lit by flickering oil lamps suspended over their heads. The snow had an ethereal effect, like he was standing in a shower of sparks.

Emil suddenly felt how close his face was to Leon's, but did not move it. "I think–" he began, but the heavy step of very intentional feet came behind Emil, and for the innumerable time that day, Emil looked behind him to find someone he had no desire to see: his grandfather. "Emil," his grandfather said, with an ounce of surprise. "I thought you had already returned home for supper."

"No, sir, I was just talking to Mr. Wang about schoolwork," Emil lied, conscious that Leon was playing catch up. "This is my acquaintance, Leon Wang, Grandfather, he lives with the English ambassador at the British embassy," Emil then said, realizing that his grandfather likely had never met Leon.

His grandfather made a stiff attempt at making his acquaintance, then pushed Emil to return home again. "You may speak to Mr. Wang before your classes tomorrow."

Leon casted a longing gaze at Emil before Emil was taken by the elbow and directed in the direction of home. Neither said anything.

The next morning after his first lecture, an interesting course on biodiversity in southern Asia that he had enrolled for in secret, Khøler once again called Emil to his office. The address in his pocket had begun to feel like it was cast in lead, especially in recent hours.

When Emil's knuckles rapped against Khøler's door against his better judgement, one hand gripping a notebook, the other the note handed from a student to Emil, originating from Khøler. After a moment Khøler opened the door, his face twisted in worry. "Please come in," he said, and pointed to a chair for Emil to take. Emil settled uneasily.

"Sir, I have a lecture in fifteen minutes, so I apologize if this seems rude, but–"

"This will only take a moment," said Khøler forcefully, as if whatever he wanted to say was so important that he might burst. It took Emil a second to realize Khøler was speaking Icelandic. "I must ask again–do you know Lukas Bondevik?"

"Why do you ask? I am not keen on being probed, sir," Emil said, returning his remark with similar high-intensity energy. Bondevik's voice echoed in his head, screaming for him to leave.

Khøler took a moment to collect himself. "I am in close contact with Mr. Bondevik. I am also not sure if you are quite clear what I mean to say here–doubtless I have already told you of my Icelandic origins, but my departure from that wretched island was less voluntary and more forced. Mr. Bondevik left behind a family there."

Emil kept steady eye contact with his ever-evolving professor. "There are many Bondeviks of Icelandic descent."

He shook his head. "No. A very specific one, one who used to be known as Stigsson–the very same name as yours. Is there a chance that you are related?"

It was time to make a decision. Would he give his brother away, or was this man as he said he was–a close acquaintance of Lukas Bondevik? Khøler seemed sincere again, but his position as an awkwardly hidden social outcast had led him to distrust any who showed him compassion. Even his grandfather, who so far had not shown him any harm, seemed like Death dressed like a priest. The lead paper in his pocket weighed even heavier, tugging at his soul and his tight heart. "Perhaps."

Khøler sat back in his chair, a look of relief rippling over his face. "You must be his brother, then."

Emil nodded, quietly apologizing to the Lukas Bondevik he imagined had moved into his mind, advising his actions. He imagined Lukas Bondevik to have the face of his father, but the eyes of his mother, and the coarse dark hair he'd always wished he'd had. "You know, your Icelandic names make it so hard to find family members. It's been so long since I called him Stigsson, but I somehow made his connection to you nonetheless. Why didn't you tell me before?"

"He's an outlaw," Emil quietly said, again apologizing to his inner Lukas Bondevik. "He left Reykjavik by force. Besides, I haven't had contact with him in twelve years."

"What if I told you I knew where you could find him, and that I could take you there?"

That old wound of distrust opened up in him again. Would Khøler take advantage of him? Would he torture, kill, turn him in? Would his mother look over the remains of his dismembered body parts in four months, unable to believe she had let her boy think this man would help him? He opted to take a safer route than those he contemplated. "I have his address, could you tell me where it is?" He took the slip of paper from his pocket, this time so much lighter.

Khøler took a quick look at the address. "We–he–moved out of there years ago. I'll take you to the symphony tonight, and you can see for yourself where he spends his time. I'll bet you remember him?"

Emil realized that his mother's story lined up with Khøler's–Lukas Bondevik hadn't returned her correspondences because he had moved. A little more confidence in his professor was restored. "I must return home by eight tonight," Emil said, grief filling him as he realized he would miss perhaps the only chance he would have to meet his wayward brother. The prodigal would slip through his fingers and back out into the sea of Europe.

"Then let's go this afternoon," said Khøler, unperturbed by his initial decline. "I will see you after your next lecture–meet me in the courtyard at midday. We may catch him during his lunch break."

The whole of the lecture Emil next sat, he could not stop fidgeting. It was a politics course, and next to him sat Leon, who had no idea what was about to happen to him. Leon thought he was nervous about the lecture, and held his clammy hand for a few minutes. The lecture seemed to last forever until the professor ran out of reasons why Francis II had abdicated nearly four decades prior. Emil shoved his things into his bag, slung it over his shoulder, and hurried from the lecture hall, Leon struggling to keep up. He yelled for Emil to slow down, but Emil bid him farewell until their next class, citing an urgent meeting with a professor, shooting his friend an apologetic smile.

In the courtyard Khøler idled just as he said he would. "Dr. Khøler!" exclaimed Emil, rushing down the icy steps, nearly falling as he buttoned his coat and yanked his scarf tight around his neck. "Am I late?"

"No, the building becomes so hot in the winter that I cannot stand it; as we like to say, there is no bad weather, only bad clothing, and it seems as though woolen trousers are fit for the winter, but not for office hours." Khøler laughed lightly, then said, "Shall we go?"

Emil nodded, and slid his hand down the canvas strap of his bag. Something weighed on his mind. "Will my brother want to see me?"

Laughing again, Khøler said, "Of course. He's been lobbying your mother for years trying to get her to send you to Copenhagen, but your father never seemed to agree–it makes sense, considering the terms Mr. Bondevik and I left him on. It literally took the hand of God, it seems, to send you here." Emil had told Khøler about Hekla and the murrain he had endeavored to escape by coming to Denmark.

The paths leading to the symphony hall were slippery and treacherous under the late autumn snow. Since it was so unpleasant, Khøler thankfully hailed a carriage to take them to the theater. Khøler babbled the whole way there, his professional façade falling before his friend's brother. Emil also learned, perhaps without Khøler meaning to tell him, that his brother had married Khøler. He had only heard stories of sodomites simulating marriages, he had never met a sodomite with such desires as Khøler displayed for a domestic life, especially without the secrecy Leon and Emil's required. Perhaps it was just that Khøler understood that Emil was not unlike himself and Lukas Bondevik. For once, Lukas Bondevik was not screaming to run, and both he and Emil waited with baited breath.

His heart began beating hard when Khøler stopped the coachman at the intersection before the Royal Danish Theater. He climbed out, offering Emil a hand. He took it, and looked around. "He's not in the theater, so we'll have to save that for another day," Khøler chirped. He turned, waved, and pointed to the lanky figure of a tall man in the distance.

Lukas looked out in the distance, away from the small green, and saw Matthias before the theater, a hand raised in the air to attract his attention. Beside him stood a shorter man–no, a boy, a student perhaps–who looked familiar. He walked to the curb, curious what Matthias was doing there. It wasn't often that they met during their lunch hours.

Crossing the street, a wave of realization washed over him. He recognized that boy.

Emil had the same face as their mother.

Emil saw the man only a few meters from them approach, his features becoming more visible with the decreased distance. His same messy shoulder-length blond hair was ruffled by the wind, and his pale face was just like his. It was like looking into a much older, much taller mirror.

Lukas Bondevik stopped in the middle of the road, some unimaginable emotion pouring over Lukas's face. The corners of his mouth quivered, and the unknown man struggled to make a movement. Emil wanted to run out into the road and pull his forgotten brother into his arms to make up for the twelve years lost.

He would never have that chance because a carriage swung around the corner of the roundabout, and right into Lukas Bondevik.


End file.
